Action Front eBook

“Now lookahere, Loo-tenant,” said Rawbon
soothingly. “There’s no need for
you to feel peaked—­not any. It was
darn good of you to let me in on these sacred no-admittance-’cept-on-business
trenches, and I’m plumb glad I landed in the
mix-up. It would probably raise trouble for you
if your boss knew you’d slipped me in; and it
sure would raise everlasting trouble for me at home
if my name was flourishin’ in the papers gettin’
an A.B.C. or D.A.M.N. or whatever the fixin’
is. And I’d sooner have this”—­slapping
the German helmet that dangled at his belt—­“than
your whole darn alphabet o’ initials. Don’t
forget what I told you about the dad an’ those
Schwartzeheimer friends o’ his, the cousins o’
which same friends I’ve been blowin’ off
the earth with bomb base-balls. Let it go at
that, and never forget it, friend—­I’m
a Benevolent Neutral.”

“I won’t forget it,” said Courtenay,
laughing and shaking hands. He watched the sergeant
as he bestrode the motor-cycle, pushed off, and swung
off warily down the wet road into the morning mist.

“What was it that despatch said a while back!”
he mused. “Something about ’There
are few who appreciate or even understand the value
of the varied work of the Army Service Corps.’
Well, this lot was a bit more varied than usual, and
I fancy it might astonish even the fellow who wrote
that line.”

DRILL

“Yesterday one of the enemy’s heavy
guns was put out of action by our artillery.”—­Extractfromdespatch.

“Stand fast!” the instructor bellowed,
and while the detachment stiffened to immobility he
went on, without stopping to draw breath, bellowing
other and less printable remarks. After he had
finished these he ordered “Detachment rear!”
and taking more time and adding even more point to
his remarks, he repeated some of them and added others,
addressing abruptly and virulently the “Number”
whose bungling had aroused his wrath.

“You’ve learnt your gun drill,”
he said, “learned it like a sulphur-crested
cockatoo learns to gabble ’Pretty Polly scratch
a poll’; why in the name of Moses you can’t
make your hands do what your tongue says ’as
me beat. You, Donovan, that’s Number Three,
let me hear you repeat the drill for Action Front.”

Donovan, standing strictly to attention, and with
his eyes fixed straight to his front, drew a deep
breath and rattled off:

“At the order or signal from the battery leader
or section commander, ‘Halt action front!’
One orders ’Halt action front!’—­At
the order from One, the detachment dismounts, Three
unkeys, and with Two lifts the trail; when the trail
is clear of the hook, Three orders ’Limber drive
on.’”

The instructor interrupted explosively.

“You see,” he growled, “you know
it. Three orders ‘Limber drive on.’
You’re Three! but did you order limber drive
on, or limber drive off, or drive anywhere at all?
Did you expect drivers that would be sitting up there
on their horses, with their backs turned to you, to
have eyes in the backs of their heads to see when
you had the trail lifted, or did you be expectin’
them to thought-read that you wanted them to drive
on!”